Creek War, (1813–14), war that resulted in U.S. victory over Creek Indians, who were British allies during the War of 1812, resulting in vast cession of their lands in Alabama and Georgia. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who expected British help in recovering hunting grounds lost to settlers, travelled to the south to warn of dangers to native cultures posed by whites. Factions arose among the Creeks, and a group known as the Red Sticks preyed upon white settlements and fought with those Creeks who opposed them. On August 30, 1813, when the Red Sticks swept down upon 553 surprised frontiersmen at a crude fortification at Lake Tensaw, north of Mobile, the resulting Ft. Mims Massacre stirred the Southern states into a vigorous response. The main army of 5,000 militiamen was led by Gen. Andrew Jackson, who succeeded in wiping out two Indian villages that fall: Tallasahatchee and Talladega.

The following spring hundreds of Creeks gathered at what seemed an impenetrable village fortress on a peninsula on the Tallapoosa River, awaiting the Americans’ attack. On March 27, 1814, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (Tohopeka, Ala.), Jackson’s superior numbers (3,000 to 1,000) and armaments (including cannon) demolished the Creek defenses, slaughtering more than 800 warriors and imprisoning 500 women and children. The power of the Indians of the Old Southwest was broken.

At the Treaty of Ft. Jackson (August 9) the Creeks were required to cede 23,000,000 acres of land, comprising more than half of Alabama and part of southern Georgia. Much of that territory belonged to Indians who had earlier been Jackson’s allies.

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...offer, and, when Jackson finally was given a command in the field, it was to fight against the Creek Indians, who were allied with the British and who were threatening the southern frontier. In a campaign of about five months, in 1813–14, Jackson crushed the Creeks, the final victory coming in the Battle of Tohopeka (or Horseshoe Bend) in Alabama. The victory was so decisive that the...

...for their assimilation of American settler culture. The tribe formed a government modeled on that of the United States. Under Chief Junaluska they aided Andrew Jackson against the Creek in the Creek War, particularly in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. They adopted colonial methods of farming, weaving, and home building. Perhaps most remarkable of all was the syllabary of the Cherokee...

...succeed, in part because the Creek towns (about 50 with a total population of perhaps 20,000) were not able to coordinate the contribution of warriors to a common battle. In 1813–14, when the Creek War (q.v.) with the United States took place, some towns fought with the white colonizers and some (the Red Sticks) against them. Upon defeat, the Creeks ceded 23,000,000 acres of land...